The Philippine government aims to sign the Reciprocal Access Agreement with Japan within the year, a National Security Council official said Saturday.

In a news forum in Quezon City, NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said that the government is ''confident'' that the agreement will be signed before the end of the year.

"We are confident that before the end of this year that RAA will be signed," he said.

Malaya said "there have been several visits by Japan negotiators to the Philippines, Philippine negotiators have been in Japan as well."

"In Washington, during the trilateral summit, this was also discussed between the Philippines and Japan and during exchanges between the Philippines and Japan after the trilateral meeting, this was also discussed and the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of the Philippines has given the instructions to our negotiators to proceed immediately," he added.

Malaya also noted that aside from Japan more countries have expressed their interest to have the same agreement with the Philippines.

"The arrangement with Japan, the RAA, the target of our country is to sign before the end of the year and there are more countries that have expressed interest," he said.

"In fact, there are a lot of countries who want to sign a Visiting Forces Agreement with us, even the New Zealand that is far from us also wants to have military exchanges with us to help us strengthen our defenses and we do not see the same with China," he added. Robina Asido/DMS